Tuesday, August 31, 2010

A "Designer Universe" Created By Mortals Like Us?

This is a rather interesting and certainly provocative piece by John Gribbin. In it, he is pushing out the idea that our universe could have been by a designer - but not a 'god' - that is not too far from us, using nothing more than a giant particle accelerator!

The black holes that could be created in a particle accelerator would be far smaller: tiny masses squeezed into incredibly tiny volumes. But because of gravity's negative energy, it doesn't matter how small such holes are: they still have the potential to inflate and expand in their own dimensions (rather than gobbling up our own). Such expansion was precisely what our universe did in the Big Bang, when it suddenly exploded from a tiny clump of matter into a fully-fledged cosmos.

You have to read the entire article to get the full picture. For me, it makes for a very good science fiction novel or movie. Again, there's nothing here that we can rule out as being impossible, but is it probable?

I didn't mention it in this blog entry because, while the titles are similar, the focus and aim are entirely different. Gribbin is describing a 'designner' not as a god, but as rather ordinary creatures that may have experimented with creating blackholes, and created our universe in the process. Weinberg is discussing more of the social and philosophical aspect of believing in some 'god' that created our universe. Entirely different.

Certainly. But there are some similarities, such as the question of what it means for natural constants to happen to be conducive to our existence. Whereas Weinberg points out, as I interpret it, how it's premature to insert the God of the Gaps, Gribbin says it's "likely" that surgically configured universes can and have come into being, which I think still qualifies as premature. This is especially so if the innards of tiny black holes can't even be observed to see if the idea does or doesn't work.

Now I do think Gribbin does a service to novices by explaining some valuable things, in particular how the energy budget of our universe balances out to zero. That's the sort of insight that the young Padawans need.